Men who drank three cups a day were 18 per cent less likely to die at any age from any cause, while women experienced an eight per cent drop.

They asked them once at the beginning of the study how muchcoffee they tended to drink and then looked at deaths over an average of 16 years.

"In summary, higher coffee consumption was associated with lower risk for all-cause death and death from heart disease, cancer, respiratory disease, stroke, diabetes, and kidney disease", reads the study. People who drank one cup a day were 12% less likely to die than those who abstained.

More specifically, the study found that the coffee drinkers had a lowered risk of dying of digestive diseases and circulatory disease.

Prof. Naveed Sattar, professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow, said: "This is a very nice paper, but its conclusions will not lead me to recommend people drinkmorecoffee as a way to lessen their risks for heart disease".

She added: "Coffee contains a lot of antioxidants and phenolic compounds that play an important role in cancer prevention". For the sake of this study, "moderate" consumption is presumed to be approximately 3 cups of coffee per day.

"Coffee is a rich source of various compounds that have biological activity", Marc Gunter, lead author of the European study, said in an email. There were a total of 185,855 participants, aged 35-75 years, of African American, native Hawaiian, Japanese American, Latino, and Caucasian descent. It might be that people who can afford three cups of coffee a day are richer and that extra money, in some way, helps protect their health.

Those who consumed about three cups a day were inclined to live longer than non-coffee drinkers, said the study, which researchers explained as the largest investigation of the effects of coffee-drinking in a European population.

And, of course, caffeine is not just found in coffee. The researchers noticed the same effects for all methods of preparation, so you should opt for whichever method is going to increase your likelihood of drinking coffee, whether you can only stand cappuccinos or only afford drip coffee.

Lower mortality was present regardless of whether people drank regular or decaffeinated coffee, suggesting the association is not tied to caffeine, said Veronica W Setiawan, associate professor at University of Southern California (USC) in the US.

Both studies adjusted findings to take into account that people who drink larger amounts of coffee are likely to smoke tobacco products as well. Women with the biggest coffee habit, however, had an increased risk of death from ovarian cancer.

It is all about statistics - and there is no guarantee that coffee will do for you what it does for your neighbor. But if you enjoy a cup of coffee everyday, you might want thank your barista (or your coffee machine): It's a habit that could, in the long run, save your life.